The past couple years, the concept of wholeness has increasingly come to the forefront of my values and decisions. At the beginning of 2022, I invited numerous friends to share their thoughts about wholeness and you can find them here. I’ve also received several submissions from individuals who reached out to me with ideas for parenting and work. Their articles reflect wholeness values as well and also on my blog page.
In the past year, my wife and I have been going through some changes with regards to work. I resigned from a full time position and she’s retired. We’ve been fortunate with our health and exploring new rhythms, places, and activities. We’ve enjoyed numerous trips with and without our kids (who are in their 20’s) and we’ve been playing quite a bit of tennis. Although we’ve enjoyed it all, there’ve been and continue to be challenges, mentally, emotionally, relationally and physically.
Most recently, my right heel and ankle have been giving me problems. It’s taken over 2 months to heal and I’m finally close to being back to normal. Then a few weeks ago, I came down with covid and felt crappy for a few days. Symptoms went away after a few days but still tested positive on day 10.
Though we’re doing pretty well for the most part, on occasion we have our disagreements or things happen and we get upset at each other. At times, things get pretty intense and honestly, it’s a struggle.
But difficulties are ubiquitous. Our world has been suffering on many levels. The pandemic. Racial strife. War. And all this on top of the problems that plague all people in all places: universal needs for systemic change ie. economically, politically, corporately, environmentally, and on personal levels, psychologically, physiologically, and spiritually. We have all experienced these at some points in our lives. And so have those who’ve come before us as well and so will those who come after us.
How do we understand and effectively deal with chronic, systemic problems?
I’ve come across many polarizing voices and they may have good intentions but I don’t believe their messages and actions really solve much. Yet differing opinions and perspectives are important parts to effective, long term solutions.
From what I’ve gathered, the root of our problems is a lack of wholeness. For a wide variety of reasons, our head, heart, and body aren’t working together. When one or more members are disconnected from the others, neglected or mistreated, our lives are diminished, individually and collectively. End result is being stuck or worse, regressive and dysfunctional. Rather than contributing to positive systemic solutions, we become complicit to disintegration of our souls, families, work places, even our society. Lack of wholeness is endemic to many individuals and organizations. And it makes no difference their ethnicity, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, religion, political stance, profit or non-profit, etc. etc.
It’s all about wholeness.
Wholeness must be prioritized as a fundamental part of solutions. If not, our situations and problems just become cyclical and likely on a downward spiral. If we want to end this trajectory, we must commit to our own internal integration. If we want to truly benefit those we love, our own parts must be at peace, loving each other. If not, we cannot and will not be positively contributing to the true wellness of others, especially the ones closest to us.
Head, heart and body in healthy relationships with each other. How are yours doing?
Integrating the 3 is our soul at work becoming one with God and aligning with Love. It’s what our soul was made for: integration. This is the primary source of sustainability ie. eternal life. It’s about participating in the process of redeeming disorder through the reordering framework and process of divine love.
What is divine love? Let’s start with what it’s not.
Essentially it is not based on transactional presuppositions, a common default of how we love, ie. doing things for another person to express love. The Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). I’ve come to understand this to mean a loyalty to transaction based relationships is the source of all irreconcilable chaos and confusion in this world. Money is currency for transactions. Love of money is a heart attachment to this way of operations. We must be healed from this toxic dysfunction and love through an integrated state of being.
In addition, divine love is not only affection. It definitely involves and experiences great feelings of all kinds but it is much more. If our love is only based on affection and emotions, we will not experience the deep, freeing, powerful evolution that wholeness brings which is able to effect systemic change.
Love is the state of being whole. This is love’s source and primary expression.
Wholeness is a very broad and deep concept and it may even seem esoteric. But the fundamentals have to do with being present to reality and wholly engaging it. What we commonly do not realize is the power that habitual default beliefs (ie. schemas) have in derailing us from living and loving as well as learning from present reality. When this internal paradigm goes awry and wreaks havoc in our relationships, especially to ourselves, all kinds of hostilities, abuse, pathologies and injuries occur. Moreover, we become more and more disconnected from what is truly going on in the lives of others and ourselves.
Working on these deeper issues requires commitment and time, much like physical fitness training. We may have moments of clarity, inspiration, and motivation but changes only come after consistent actions that result from contemplation, aligned choices and actions over time. Also, integration is not something we just add to our calendars. Living in wholeness transforms our calendars so that our activities and inactivities reflect a stronger, healthier, more sustainable life.
So what do we do to grow in wholeness and how do we get started?
Contemplation is a basic essential:
The action of looking thoughtfully at something for a long time.
Deep reflective thought.
It’s spending time to get clearer about what is really going on internally and externally. This involves deeper and broader knowledge of self and others. It’s not settling for conclusions that were not honestly and fairly obtained through sincere, patient and humble communication with trust and vulnerability.
That’s a starter for our insides, our heart and mind. But we need to love our bodies too. Diet, rest, and exercise are the essentials and there’s a ton of content on them.
At this point, I just want to give some focus to stability and strength training as an effective means to greater wholeness. We want exercise that significantly, systemically improves us. This will come through regular core and strength building movement of local and global muscles.
Our skeletal muscle system of approximately 600 muscles is the organ of longevity.
Thriving in the second half of life will depend on the size and strength of our muscles, not simply cardiovascular fitness. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon has identified skeletal muscles are our our body’s largest endocrine organ. When meaningfully engaged through strenuous contractions, hormones are released that improve our body’s ability to metabolize nutrients. This important fact is radically connected to cardiovascular disease and pathologies like diabetes and obesity; these conditions involve an inability to regulate and utilize nutrients ie. carbs and fats. Dr. Lyon traces this to a lack of muscle/ muscular movement.
I recently got my physical trainer’s certification from National Academy of Sports Medicine and am ready to help you create and develop a program to improve stability and strength. From now until the end of June, I’m offering a complimentary assessment and program design to the first 20 of you who respond.
If you’re interested, please email me at FamilyConnectionsCoach@gmail.com and I’ll send you an assessment to complete and return. From there, we can work together to come up with a dynamic routine to cultivate better connections with your body. I look forward to hearing from you and partnering with you to become stronger and more integrated as we head into the back half of 2022 to ramp up for an awesome 2023 and beyond.
Am I suggesting strength training as the cure all? Yes and no.
Yes in that it’s an important place to start.
No in that it doesn’t stop there.
It’s about wholeness and the transformation that greater integration brings. We don’t know what that will be until we experience the radical changes from the inside out.
Bring your head, heart and body together and who knows what miracles and gifts Love will produce!
